Saturday, April 11, 2009

I came to Tiki in an odd way. Remember when I talked about podcasting? During my obsession with swing jazz, I went searching for podcasts that played swing and neo-swing, which led me to The Bachelor Pad Radio Show (and Bachelor Pad Magazine) and the Cocktail Nation podcast. Somehow, this led me to Tiki Magazine.

I recently subscribed to the magazine and ordered a couple of back issues that had articles on Shag (artist Josh Agle) and Tiki Bar TV (discussed in a recent blog post). Shag is incredible, I love his artwork, which is sexy, stylish, and evocative of a 50's, 60's, and 70's mentality. I may do a post on him in the future

I'm starting to listen more to "tiki" and exotica music. It's kid of best described as a cool version of easy listening. I think it's generally perfect for an afternoon and evening in a beach bungalow with your significant other.

There are several bands that seem to be favored by tikiphiles. Remember, this is a new genre I'm experimenting with. I'm sure there are many other great bands I'm neglecting. Several names pop up over and over again, and these are two groups that seem to be popular. I'm particularly fond of the Don Tiki website, where you can play a game called Virgin Sacrifice.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

It's time for you to try another podcast. In case you don't know, podcasts are audio files you can download. I listen to several, some on a weekly basis. Many are homemade radio shows or rants of some sort or another, some are audiobooks that are released as serial podcasts. Some are short and some are long, some are worthwhile and many are terrible.

Today's recommendation (definitely not terrible, pretty damn good) is for the Cocktail Nation podcast, broadcast from a penthouse in Sydney, Australia by a gentleman named Koop Kooper. He plays a lot of great retro and lounge tunes, tiki and exotica, spy-jazz and swing, and he seems to have a warm place in his heart for Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack. I listen to his podcast pretty consistently. While I sometimes turn other podcasts off when they start to get boring (there is simply too much available to make it worth listening to something that isn't entertaining), I listen to Koop's all the way through pretty much every week. His taste in music is spot-on in my opinion. His shows really mix it up and he has some great interviews and history that he peppers in as well. Download a few shows and give them a try.